For new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, follow NPR's Short Wave podcast.In the city of Mashhad in northeast Iran, there's a natural history museum associated with local Ferdowsi University that gets all manner of donations, including animals that died in the road and injured birds.With all these specimens pouring in, the research team quickly ran out of space."We don't have enough freezers to put these dead animals," says Niloofar Alaei Kakhki, a bioinformatician who's studied and worked there."We have to find a way to clean them," she adds, so that these animals' skeletons can be studied and exhibited.Researchers use a range of techniques to strip the flesh off an organism, but each has its drawbacks.
In a paper published this month in PLOS One, Alaei and her colleagues propose an alternative — employing a suite of superworms, a kind of hefty beetle larva that can capably pick a variety of animal skeletons clean.The worms work fast, yet they're "super gentle," says Alaei.Among the existing methods for cleaning flesh off a specimen is chemical treatment, but that tends to be bad for the environment and can degrade the skeleton.Another option is boiling, but it's time-consuming and can damage "tiny, delicate bones," says Alaei.Then there's the use of another kind of insect, dermestid beetles, which quickly chew away the flesh, but if they escape, "it could be really dangerous for the museum collection," she says.
That's because they're likely to destroy preserved specimens by chewing through feathers and dried skin.Then, some years ago, Alaei's colleagues in Iran turned their attention to Zophobas morio — the superworm, which is native to South and Central America.Each one is nearly the size of a human finger, they have large chewing mandibles, and they're available as feed at many pet stores.
Superworms are usually devoured by other animals, but Alaei says she and her colleagues wondered: What if they did the eating inst...